Pleasure Versus Happiness

Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore

Susie Moore

Society & Culture, Philosophy, Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Life Coach, Motivational, Personal Development, Mental Health, Life Coaching, Self-help, Education

5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if happiness isn’t about feeling good, but about living well? We unpack a sharper definition of joy inspired by Mark Manson’s newsletter and traced back to Jefferson and Aristotle, drawing a clean line between hedonic hits that fade and eudaimonic fulfillment that lasts. Along the way, we test the modern myth that constant smiles equal a good life and offer a practical lens you can use to plan your weekend, your holidays, and the next year with intention. And, as a special FREE bonus, I ...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.
0:09.7	Okay, my friends, today I read Mark Manson's newsletter and I loved it.
0:16.9	And I said, you know what, I'm going to read this to my pod listeners. Mark Manson is the author of the
0:23.9	subtle art of not giving a F-U-C-K. I know many children. I listen to this podcast, too. You tell me that you
0:31.6	played in the car, played at home, love it. But he is a best-selling author, many, many years on the New York Times list
0:40.6	for his different points of view. And his email today was about the two kinds of happiness.
0:50.1	And I thought, I'd read this to you, we could ponder it together. And this might inspire more of
0:58.2	the allowing of what is real and what is lasting. Here's what he says. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson
1:08.3	promised the right to pursue happiness. What most people don't realize is that he didn't mean pizza, sex, and binging stranger things until 4 a.m. Most people think happiness means smiling all the time, feeling good, never struggling. But if that were the case, clowns and drug addicts would be the happiest people alive. When Jefferson wrote the
1:29.3	pursuit of happiness, he wasn't talking about pleasure. Back then, happiness meant something
1:34.5	different. It meant flourishing. It meant purpose, meaning, living out your values. It meant living
1:40.4	well, even though life punches you in the gut. Jefferson didn't invent this idea.
1:45.7	It came from Aristotle, who said there are actually two kinds of happiness.
1:50.9	The first is hedonic happiness, which is pleasure, comfort, distraction.
1:56.6	The second is eudamonic, I think I'm saying that right, eudamonic happiness, which is fulfillment,
2:05.0	purpose, knowing your time here actually mattered.
2:11.2	Haddonic happiness is cheap. It fades the second the buzz wears off. But eudamonic happiness
2:17.3	endures. Yes, it's harder. It demands
2:20.7	sacrifice, but it's the only kind of happiness that leaves you whole. Yet most people spend
2:27.4	their entire lives chasing hedonic happiness and wondering while they feel so hollow. If your happiness disappears the moment the pleasure does, it was never happiness.
2:38.9	It was just anesthesia.
2:42.3	My friends, when you think about happiness, when you think about this weekend coming up,
	...

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